Parson, mainstream GOP thought they could control the radicals who are now in charge
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson raged into the darkness Tuesday after a state Senate committee rejected his choice for health director.
Donald Kauerauf, Parson’s nominee, wasn’t conservative enough, apparently.
“I’ve been a conservative Republican my entire life,” Parson sputtered. “Contrary to what some senators believe, tarnishing a man’s character by feeding misinformation, repeating lies and disgracing 35 years of public health experience is not what it means to be conservative.”
But feeding misinformation and repeating lies is precisely what it means to be a Missouri conservative in 2022. Parson need only look across the street, to Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office, or to Washington, where Sen. Josh Hawley lives, for ready examples.
Or maybe Parson should look in the mirror. A governor who refuses questions from journalists, or seeks to prosecute a newspaper for its reporting, should not be throwing stones at others for misinformation and lies.
But understand this: While Kauerauf’s rejection was a political disaster for the governor, it was predictable, because radical Republicans now control the state’s government. The seeds for the takeover were planted decades ago.
Fringe thinking has been a part of American politics for most of its history. “American politics has often been an arena for angry minds,” historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in his still-prescient essay defining the “paranoid style” of public debate.
Even angry Americans get to vote, of course. Because mainstream Missouri Republicans valued those votes, they indulged the toxic stew of conspiracy, bigotry and antisemitism in their midst.
Soon, though, the ballot box wasn’t enough for radical conservatives. They started running for office — a school board here, a county commission there — and winning. Aided by out-of-sight social media and talk radio, fringe candidates and public figures moved from the shadows and into the spotlight.
Mainstream Republicans were appalled. They responded with appeasement: a few abortion restrictions, maybe some pro-gun stuff, a tax cut or two. That should be enough to keep the right-wingers happy, they thought.
It was not. The radicals wanted it all.
Emboldened by routine success at the ballot box, untethered to facts, reality or oversight, fringe Republicans took over Missouri government. We’ve reached the age of capitulation, when regular Republicans shrug at their senator fist-pumping protesters before the Capitol riot, or the rejection of a perfectly capable, perfectly qualified nominee for health director.
It isn’t clear to me how this ends, or if it will. We once thought mainstream Republicans could end the siege by denouncing the cultists and conspiracists, but that won’t work: Radical Republicans mock former Sen. Jack Danforth whenever he rues what his party has become. They’re laughing at Parson today.
Voters might make the difference, but conservatives have so distorted election systems, a recovery might be decades away, at least in Missouri. Watch carefully: Radicals have targeted petition rights in the state because they want power for themselves, and no one else, ever.
Who would want to run for office, or serve the public, given these facts? Who would want to be Missouri’s next health director? Who would submit his or her future to the angry cabal on the floor of the state Senate? No one knows.
Who would want to move a business here, or start one? Who would send their children to schools where history is ignored and thinking discouraged? No one knows.
And what’s next? Missourians have no reason to believe radical hegemony in their state will fade anytime soon — just look at the candidates for the open U.S. Senate seat. Imagine any one of those candidates sitting next to Hawley next year, and try not to worry.
Dismantling public schools? Ignoring public health? Enabling police brutality? All on the table.
Gov. Parson is right to be furious at the state Senate, but it is far too little and far too late. The seeds of disaster were planted decades ago. They were tended by mainstream Republicans too timid or self-interested to speak out, and now the hour of harvest has come.
